YA The Boy on Cinnamon Street by Phoebe Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

seventy-two is an asset when I’m looking to teach seniors. See what I mean?” But since I’m not on the team anymore, I have no need to be small. So I want to grow. Now.
    They have all these gorgeous dresses arranged by color. Which one would Thumbelina have worn when she sat in the center of a delicate flower with her beautiful prince, getting married finally after suffering great hardships living with a bunch of weird animals who didn’t get her? I mean, if a big ugly mole came up and asked me to marry him, I would pass out cold and have to be taken to the ER in North Pottsboro. Pronto. To be quite honest, I do NOT want to die in South Pottsboro.
    Maybe I should get a dress to match Benny McCartney’s eyes. I think Reni would approve of that. I mean, he wouldn’t have to know why I was wearing it. No pressure or anything like that. But I’m not even sure what color his eyes are.
    “Look, honey,” says Grandma, “isn’t this one a dream?” She pulls out a net-covered light green silk dress with a matching crown of flowers. Grandpa is smiling. He has what my English teacher calls an “amused smile” on his face.
    “Ah, maybe he doesn’t hate being retired after all,” Grandma says, putting her arm around me and looking up at Grandpa. I’m not listening. I hold the flower crown in my hands. It’s so perfect! Nobody could call me Abbott and Costello if I had that on my head.
    “Oh, I love this dress,” I say. “Do you think you have one in my size?”
    The girl selling the clothes is probably three years older than me but she thinks I’m just some little kid. It’s totally annoying. She has this look on her face, a frown covered up with a smirk, covered up with a smile.
    “Well, we do have a few very small sizes on this rack,” the salesgirl says. Grandpa smiles at her like she’s so cute and sweet and so adorable. I hate Grandpa. I’m never speaking to him again.
    “Here’s the same dress,” says Grandma, “in a size one. We are very lucky to find this.” She winks at the salesgirl. While I go into the dressing room with the to-die-for pale green dress, Grandma and Grandpa get all cozy chatting away with the stuck-up snotty salesgirl. Grandma is out there talking about my size issues. It’s like she’s telling that girl my deepest, darkest secrets and fears. Then Grandma ups and says, “Well, she hasn’t developed fully yet, and finding clothes in her size can be challenging.” It is the “fully developed” part that I am dying over. Thanks a lot, Grandma.
    I try the dress on and it fits me perfectly. I look in the mirror and it seems like I was born to wear this dress. Like I’m meant to wear it. Once you have found your inner fairy tale, you can’t help but act it out! Don’t laugh, Merit Madson. I turn in a circle alone in the dressing room.
    My grandma and grandpa end up buying me the dress with the green silk underskirt and the net overlay and, best of all, the crown of rosebuds and violets. When we get home, I hang it up on a hook on the wall right opposite the couch. That’s the place where most normal people have a good cable TV with maybe a 36 x 48 inch screen that gets 120 channels, but where we have nothing but a blank wall. My grandma does not like large television sets or cable TV.
    Grandma and Grandpa are ready to go out to the sushi restaurant. Grandma has on one of her 1950s vintage dresses. “Doesn’t this look like the dresses we saw today?” she says. “Things just come back around, don’t they? Honey, we’ll see you in a couple of hours. Be positive.”
    They leave, waving and shutting the door behind them, and suddenly a kind of snowy sunset loneliness settles in around me. I’m flopped on the organic couch with my stupid child’s-size-12 feet on the coffee table. I’m sitting here being positive, staring at the light moss green Thumbelina dress that is hanging before me on the wall like an impossible dream.

Chapter
Eight
     
    It’s nearing the end of